Technology Life

An unusual species of ancient reptile dubbed the “Frankenstein dinosaur” because it seemed to be made up of parts from unrelated species could be the missing link between plant-eaters and meat-eaters, according to research published Wednesday in the journal .
Known as , the creature cl...

Biological life made the leap from simple, one-celled microbes to complex multi-cellular plants and animals following a period of glaciation that began around 700 million years ago, geologists from the Australian National University reported online Wednesday in the journal .
Scientists ...

Mosquito spraying efforts, shown here at a cemetery in Peru, likely had little to do with the steep drop in Zika cases.
MARTIN MEJIA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Zika has all but disappeared in the Americas. Why?
One. That is the total number of locally transmitted Zika cases c...

NASA’s Odyssey spacecraft has discovered subsurface ice on Mars at latitudes far lower than the planet’s polar caps.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Water ice found near Mars’s equator could entice colonists and life-seekers
Scientists have discovered substantial deposits of w...

Watch this soft robot heal like Wolverine
Hard metal robots are fine and good for building cars and exploring Mars, but when it comes to gripping fragile objects or mimicking human limbs, soft machines are best. The problem: Today’s soft robots are very delicate, and small rips...

Archaeologists uncovered the fifth known Viking Age ring fortress in Denmark, which would have looked similar to this Swedish fortress reconstruction.
Antony McAulay
Thousand-year-old Viking fortress reveals a technologically advanced society
When archaeologists unc...

European mink pups bred at the Tallinn Zoological Gardens have been released on Hiiumaa Island in Estonia since 2000.
Tiit Maran
Scientists think they can save the European mink—by killing its ruthless rivals
Somewhere along the upper Aragón River, between the jagge...

Yuzhen Yan
Record-shattering 2.7-million-year-old ice core reveals start of the ice ages
Scientists announced today that a core drilled in Antarctica has yielded 2.7-million-year-old ice, an astonishing find 1.7 million years older than the previous record-holder. B...

Chilesaurus diegosuarezi has a puzzling mix of anatomical features that make it hard to classify. First thought to be a theropod, a new study suggests it’s an ornithischian.
Sebastian Silva/EFE/Newscom
Scientists struggle to fit this strange vegetarian dinosaur...

SPHEREx would map hundreds of millions of galaxies to look for signs of cosmic inflation, a rapid expansion just after the big bang.
NASA JPL
Missions to probe exoplanets, galaxies, and cosmic inflation vie for $250 million NASA slot
From exoplanet atmospheres to th...